Apple's "iTV" announcement today

[rakeshagrawal]

So Apple finally announced their first living room product today... the Apple "iTV" as he called it in his keynote:



Details are here.

Thoughts? Opinions?

[btvfreak]

My thoughts are here:
http://htpc.threesixty.cc/2006/09/12...-really-apple/

I tend to agree with others in saying that this is hardly innovative, but it is an important step for Apple.

[rugby]

As an Apple Consultant and fan I think you need to understand Apple's thought process. They take baby steps and make sure the product performs well and has no bugs. Sure it might not have all the features you want immediately, take a look at the iPod. After all these years it doesn't have an FM tuner, doesn't play OGG or WMV DRM files, and it's still the #1 selling mp3 player. Same approach with iTV. I have 4 Macs in my house and 2 PC's. One PC is my test SBS 2003 server and the other is my HTPC running BTV.

iTV won't be for people like us who like to tinker, it's for people like my clients who have all their music in iTunes, their pictures in iPhoto, and purchase shows from the iTunes store and want to easily put them all on their TV. So what if it does 640x480 now? There's an HDMI port on the back and 1080i should be possible if the bandwidth is there to stream across your network.

Apple's "innovation" has always been to make something pretty difficult extremely easy to setup and use.

[ClamsTheCat]

I agree. This a a great idea for those who just want something to work, and do not want to play with it.

[btvfreak]

Originally Posted by rugby

As an Apple Consultant and fan I think you need to understand Apple's thought process. They take baby steps and make sure the product performs well and has no bugs. Sure it might not have all the features you want immediately, take a look at the iPod. After all these years it doesn't have an FM tuner, doesn't play OGG or WMV DRM files, and it's still the #1 selling mp3 player. Same approach with iTV. I have 4 Macs in my house and 2 PC's. One PC is my test SBS 2003 server and the other is my HTPC running BTV.

iTV won't be for people like us who like to tinker, it's for people like my clients who have all their music in iTunes, their pictures in iPhoto, and purchase shows from the iTunes store and want to easily put them all on their TV. So what if it does 640x480 now? There's an HDMI port on the back and 1080i should be possible if the bandwidth is there to stream across your network.

Apple's "innovation" has always been to make something pretty difficult extremely easy to setup and use.

Hence my statement:
"I tend to agree with others in saying that this is hardly innovative, but it is an important step for Apple."

I don't think it's a wireless streaming device is very innovative since it has been done before, but it is the next logical step for Apple.

Now, as I mentioned my blog post I really think it would be killer for Apple to complete their digital lifestyle puzzle by releasing their own PVR app integrated into their Front Row frontend. I say this because Apple's products are always well designed and "just work", so I'd expect nothing less out their PVR software. Although I doubt this is high on their priority list since this endevour would probably mean a lot of headaches for them, and they seem pretty happy to rake in the rewards from their iTunes downloads.

However, for people like myself I'd consider downloading music from iTunes if I could get one consolidated media frontend and PVR software from them. Right now iTunes downloads don't play nice with Beyond Media (my frontend of choice right now). Also, I don't see the point of spending that much on a movie at a lower resolution than I can get by spending the same amount (most likely less) on the actual DVD. To each their own.

[rugby]

I download most of my music from iTunes because it's easy and it's the ONLY online store that supports both Macs and PC's.

I use BM for my frontend but not for music, I wish I could. I have a MacBook Pro and have played around with frontrow and it's very simple to use and looks great on an HDTV. I just use a laptop with my G5 in the office housing all my music shared via iTunes and streaming through an Airport Express hooked to my stereo.

$299 isn't a bad price, although for aroun $480 you can get a refurbed core solo Mac Mini from the apple online store and have a functional computer.